League Against Imperialism - 1926-1931: Difficulties

1926-1931: Difficulties

The League against Imperialism was first ignored then boycotted by the Socialist International. Jean Longuet, a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), criticized it, calling it "vague Sovietic chitchat" ("vague parlotte soviétique"). On April 12, 1927, the Kuomintang entered Shanghai and carried out a massacre of Communist forces which had opened Shanghai's doors for it. In December, it crushed the Commune of Guangzhou (Commune de Canton). The alliance between Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists and the Communist Party of China was terminated, sparking the Chinese Civil War between both sides, also struggling against the Japanese. The League Against Imperialism's alliance strategy thus failed.

Henceforth, the VIth Congress of the Comintern, in 1928, changed policy directions, denouncing "social-fascism" in what it called the "third period of the labour movement" (reconstruction on new bases of post-imperialist war capitalism). The new "social-fascist" line weighted on the IInd Congress of the League, gathered in Frankfurt end of July 1929. 84 delegates of "oppressed countries" were present, and the Congress saw a bitter struggle between Communists and "reformist-nationalist bourgeois." Divided, the League was basically inoperative until 1935, when the VIIth Congress of the Comintern decided to allow itself dissolve. Nehru had already been excluded, and Einstein, honorary president, had resigned because of "disagreements with the pro-Arab policy of the League in Palestine." In any cases, the League remained composed mainly of intellectuals, and did not succeed in finding popular support.